Gated (2 page)

Pioneer stops the truck and slides out of the driver’s seat. Immediately the field around us seems closer, smaller. Pioneer seems to fill most of the space now. It’s not like he’s a particularly big man or really muscular or anything. In fact, he’s pretty much the opposite—pale and rail-thin.
It’s what is under the skin that’s large. His intensity isn’t contained in his slight frame. It pulses all around him like sound waves or beams of light. He almost seems to glow most of the time. He’s the only person in Mandrodage Meadows—or anywhere else, for that matter—whnywer o does. I can’t seem to look away when he’s around; he just doesn’t leave room for that option. He rubs at the scruff along his chin and ambles over to us.

Marie, Brian, and Will glance at me. I ignore them and pretend to search for more shells, wishing for a hole to bury myself in.

“So how’d it go today?” Pioneer’s voice is mellow and warm, practically filled with sunshine.

“Um, good,” Will says.

I hold my breath. Wait. With any luck, Pioneer will simply let this be it, take Will at his word, and go … but I’m holding out very little hope for that. I sneak peeks at Pioneer and the others as I continue to pick up casings. Despite his pleasant, conversational tone, his blue eyes are sharp, cutting into each of my friends in turn. He knows something’s not right.

Marie bounces toward Pioneer—all curls and energy. “I hit the head and the heart twice in a row!”

“Without Brian’s help?” Pioneer sounds skeptical. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see his hand go up to pat her shoulder.

“Yep. The last couple shots, I did.”

“She really did,” I hear Brian say.

I look up again just as Pioneer beams at Marie and then bear-hugs her. “Well done. I knew you’d get it … eventually.”

Will and Brian both let out a snicker, and Marie sticks her tongue out at them.

Pioneer’s gaze swivels to me again, catching me watching them. I try to smile, fake excitement that he’s here. The others begin to move so that they are between Pioneer and me. They’re trying to distract him, have been for the past few minutes, I realize, and I feel a rush of affection for them. Even though they’ve been pressuring me to shoot right every time we’re out here, it’s only because they don’t want me to get in trouble with Pioneer.

“Shall we examine the targets?” Pioneer says from behind the wall of my friends, extra loud so that I know he means mine specifically.

I drop the shells I’ve been gathering into a pile on the ground, stand up without a word, and join the others. The air feels charged, like there’s an approaching storm, even though the day is still clear and beautiful. I ball my hands into fists and follow everyone to the targets.

Brian shows Pioneer his target first. Will rushes in with his next. Pioneer nods, clearly pleased with them both. Then Marie shows him hers—chattering the whole time about how she’s improved her stance and doesn’t jump anymore when the rifle goes off. I know she’s trying to stall, distract him just a little longer for me, but it’s
irritating Pioneer. He’s practically vibrating, like a tuning fork that’s been struck particularly hard. I grit my teeth and come forward. Marie’s voice winds down immediately and she backs away until she’s between the boys. She looks scared. I swallow a laugh.
I’m
the one in trouble and
she’s
scared. Typical.

“Lyla,” Pioneer says slowly, “show me your target, please.”

I can only manage a tight nod. I’m about to disappoint him, but what can I do about it now? I point at my plywood man like it’s a particularly lame prize from that game show Pioneer lets us watch sometimes. Then I try to square my shoulders and wait for his reacts ior his ion.

Pioneer stands in front of the target for an uncomfortably long time. I fidget from foot to foot, bite my lip, and pull on my braid. The others huddle together silently.

“This target looks relatively unharmed,” Pioneer finally says. “Why?”

Will opens his mouth to speak, but Pioneer shushes him with one glance. “My question was directed at Lyla.”

His eyes bore into me, searing my skin. Why can’t I shoot right like everyone else? There’s no answer that I can give that’ll make him understand, when I don’t even understand myself. So I panic, like always, and say the first thing that pops into my head.

The wrong thing.

“Um, I guess I have a soft spot for the tall, dark, and
faceless?” I let out a short, nervous burst of laughter. As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I know how flippant they sound, but it’s too late to take them back now.

Pioneer’s voice is ice. “This is not a joke. You are a liability to the Community if you can’t help defend it.”

He takes a deep, measured breath and his eyes soften. His lips curl into a smile. “I just want to keep you safe.” He gestures to the field and the targets. “All of this is meant to keep you safe.”

He walks over to Brian’s target, stoops, and picks it up off of the ground. He knocks on it. “They’re just pulp. Wood. Not people. This practice should be easy. It’s meant to be easy. You have to desensitize yourself. If you can’t hit the targets, you won’t hit the actual people. And we need you to, Lyla. We most certainly do.”

Pioneer moves to where Brian is standing and gestures at his gun. Brian hands it to him. He turns to me and raises the gun so that it’s pointing at my stomach. His eyes flash as he stares me down. I know he won’t shoot me, but it still makes my muscles tense, my nerves thrum.

“Those people out there don’t know you. They don’t care about you. They will shoot you to take what you have if it means saving their own.” He swings the gun around and points it at Will. Will flinches. I can see him fight the urge to take a step back. “They’ll murder the ones you love if you give ’em the chance.” He looks back at me. “And they will not hesitate. Ever. So you can’t either.” He drops the gun and we stop holding our breath.

Pioneer takes my arm and guides me to the space across from the unused target. It’s the silhouette of a woman holding hands with a child. I tense. It’s silly, I guess, but I can’t help it.

“You can’t see them as people like you or me. They’re already ghosts. The Brethren will save only us, their chosen ones. When the earth’s rotation reverses in three months, most folks’ll be wiped from the planet in a matter of minutes, swallowed up by tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. So the Brethren have told me and so I’ve told you. Time and again. It’s their destiny, just as it is ours to survive. Do you not believe my word? Do you not believe that the Brethren, our all-knowing creators, in their infinite wisdom, have seen who is and who is not worthy to start again? Has doubt taken hold in you?”

I shake my head and swallow. His words cut me to the quick. He’s right. If I resist this, I am as good as spitting in the faces of those who have helped show me the light.
What’s wrong gu019;s wwith me?

“Would you let them take some of us with them while you hesitate? Do you not care for us as we care for you? Shooting those who would hurt your family and endanger the Brethren’s plan shows your love for us, your faith in the Brethren.” He pats my shoulder. “You are a gentle spirit, Little Owl. It’s why you are one of their chosen. But even lambs have to be lions sometimes.”

He’s using my nickname—the one he gave me because
I’m always watching everything, taking things in. Usually I like it and the way his voice warms when he says it, but not now. Today it just makes me feel weak.

He guides my rifle back up onto my shoulder and gently moves my braid from between it and my cheek. I focus in on the woman cutout first and level the gun. I have to do what he’s asking. I owe it to him, to all of us.

“When you pull the trigger this time, you will aim for the head or the heart,” Pioneer whispers in my ear. “Show me, show them”—he points at Will, Brian, and Marie—“how much you love us.”

He backs away to stand with the others. I can feel their eyes on me. I chew on my lip.
Get ahold of yourself. They aren’t even real
. I aim at the woman’s chest. Breathe in and out. Then I close my eyes at the last second and pull the trigger. When I open my eyes, there’s a hole in the cutout’s chest.

“Good. Now again,” Pioneer commands.

I aim at the smaller target. I try not to see its small hands and feet. I concentrate on the black middle of the plywood. Still, when the bullet explodes out of my gun, my chest tightens. Pioneer makes me shoot both targets again and again and again. They are mangled and unrecognizable when I’m through, but I’m not as sick as I was to start with. I still don’t like the shooting, but I can at least do it now without flinching each time.

Pioneer’s grinning widely at me. “That’s my girl!” He pulls me to him and kisses my forehead. His shirt smells
like hay and grass and gunpowder. “Your sweet nature is what I love most about you. But unfortunately, until this world is no more, that nature is dangerous. To you and to all of us. You have to prepare for the months ahead of us yet. Get strong.” He tilts my chin up and looks me in the eye. “Let me prepare you, Little Owl. The more you fight what I tell you, the harder things will be for you.” There’s an edge in his voice now that undercuts the warmth of his embrace. It makes me shiver.

“You all will help her come around, won’t you? You’ll let me know if she needs my undivided attention again as we go forward toward these last days?”

My friends nod obediently. I swallow and focus on the grass beneath my feet. I’m everyone’s project now. I can’t look any of them in the eye. I’m just too embarrassed.

“Well, now, afternoon lessons begin in twenty minutes,” Pioneer says. “Hurry and clean up. I’ll be expecting you all to be on time.” He turns and heads for his truck without looking back.

Silence settles over us. We pull our targets off their mounts and replace them with new ones from the shed at the far end of the field. Dust still swirls in the air from where Pioneer’s truck kicked it up. I cough as some of it goes down my throat.

When the range is back in order, Will and I follow Brian and Marie to the cornfield and the road beyond. The air between"1e air be all of us is still awkward and tense. I hate that I’m proving to be such a failure at defense—even Marie
is more reliable at it. I’m not sure how to readjust my instincts, be as quick to shoot as everyone else. Pioneer’s help hasn’t changed this.

Halfway to the road, Marie turns and points her gun toward the range again. She lowers her voice, makes it sound vaguely mechanical. “I’ll be back,” she says. Her face is perfectly deadpan. It breaks the awkwardness between all of us, and I want to hug her for it.

Brian rolls his eyes and laughs. “What is it with you two and the Terminator movies? I thought they were supposed to be for guys.”

Marie and I look at each other and she grins. “Um, it’s impossible not to quote them when Pioneer’s shown them to us about a zillion times. And besides, when there are guys in them as totally hot as that Kyle character, they most definitely become girl movies.”

Brian plugs his ears. “Not listening,” he says a little too loudly, and we all start laughing.

Any remaining tension in the air floats away. I give Marie a grateful look and she winks. I know that I owe it to her—and to Will, Pioneer, and everyone else, for that matter—to come around. These are my people. My Community. My family. I can’t trouble myself anymore with the rest of the world. Their fate was decided
a long time ago—as was mine.

The first time I laid eyes on Pioneer, I was just five years old. He went by another name back then, one closer to the kind the rest of us have, but I don’t know what it was anymore, since for as long as I can remember, we’ve called him Pioneer.

We lived in New York City back then, in the brownstone my parents bought just before my older sister was born. I remember the pink-and-white-striped wallpaper in Karen’s and my room and my sister Karen’s brown suede school shoes, the ones that she always left right in the middle of the front hall. My mom was holding those shoes when we found out that my sister had disappeared. Karen and I had been out in front of the house playing—well, fighting over what to play, anyway. Karen wanted to draw and I wanted to do hopscotch. I’d run in to tattle on her for pulling my hair, and when I came back with Mom, she was gone. No one saw anything. There were no clues to show where she’d gone or who might’ve taken her. There
was only one bright yellow piece of chalk and a half-drawn picture of our family on the sidewalk out front. In the drawing, only our feet weren’t completed. I used to think that whoever took her made her stop there on purpose so we wouldn’t have a way to follow.

My mom cradled Karen’s shoes to her chest nonstop after that—when the cops showed up to ask questions, and especially a few days later, when the two big buildings downtown got hit by airplanes and the cops stopped looking for my sister and started looking for survivors.